China: The elaborate ceremonials of Nguyen Phu Trong’s state visit are a reminder of the lopsided attraction and resistance that underpin Sino-Vietnamese.
The head of Vietnam’s communist party has been received with unusual levels of pomp and ceremony during his three-day state visit to Beijing, during which China’s leader Xi Jinping said the two ruling parties should “never let anyone interfere” with their progress.
According to state-controlled media reports from Beijing, China yesterday received Nguyen Phu Trong and his delegation with the rare gesture of a 21-gun salute on his arrival for a three-day visit. Trong and Xi Jinping then shook hands and embraced before taking part in a televised welcome ceremony in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, against a field of outsized Chinese, Vietnamese, and communist party flags.
Trong is the first foreign leader to greet Xi Jinping since he won an esoteric but unchallenged third five-year term in power at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last month. The two party leaders met last back in November 2017, when Xi visited Vietnam to attend the APEC Summit in Danang.
The Vietnamese delegation that accompanied Trong was not only unusually large, “but dominated by officials involved in the party and national security affairs.” These reportedly included both Minister of Public Security ‘To Lam’ and Defense Minister ‘Phan Van Giang’.
Notably, Xi also awarded his Vietnamese counterpart the ‘Friendship Medal’ of the PRC, which according to the state-run Global Times, “is bestowed on foreigners who have made outstanding contributions to China’s socialist modernization, the promotion of exchange and cooperation between China and foreign countries.”
The atmosphere of mutual regard took on strategic overtones in Xi’s comments to Trong, during which he said that Vietnam, China, and their respective ruling communist parties should stand firm against foreign (i.e. U.S.) interference.
“The development of the cause of human progress is a long and tortuous process, and the development of socialist countries faces a very complicated international environment and serious risks and challenges,” Xi reportedly said, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.
“The Chinese and Vietnamese parties should persist in working for the happiness of the people and the progress of mankind, push forward socialist modernization with all their might, and never let anyone interfere with our progress or let any force shake the institutional foundation of our development.”
Chinese state media drove the point home by opining that the special relationship between Vietnam and China, rooted in their party-to-party ties, was “beyond certain countries’ comprehension.” This was an obvious veiled reference to the U.S., which it accused of trying “to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam,” adding that this effort “hasn’t obstructed mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Vietnam.”
Meanwhile, Vietnamese state media reported that Trong’s trip to Beijing would bring bilateral relations “to a new stage of development.”
All of these comments should be taken with a pinch of salt, as part of the rituals that accompany party-to-party relations between the two communist neighbours. The florid ceremonials would nonetheless be curious for anyone prone to viewing the growing strategic competition between China and the United States in starkly binary terms.
It is pertinent to mention that despite the two nations’ maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and a history of resistance to Chinese power that infuses Vietnamese nationalism, the two governments are still bound by several shared interests. Leaving aside the claims to eternal socialist brotherhood, Vietnam is enmeshed in China-centered supply chains, and the two communist parties share a common desire to preserve their rule in the face of what both perceive as Western-led efforts at regime change or modification.
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Of course, this week’s mutual praise does nothing to override the large areas of disagreement in the relationship. But it is a reminder that at a time when many in both China and the West are adopting indistinct views of strategic competition, Vietnam’s relationship with China remains a mesh of utter confusion.
At this juncture, it is noteworthy to mention – Can the common Vietnamese forget and forgive the ‘Bitter Legacy of the 1979 Chinese invasion of Vietnam’?
Officially, both sides have tried to forget the bloody conflict. Unofficially, bitterness still runs deep. Almost four decades on since China waged a massive and costly invasion of Vietnam on February 17, 1979, the deliberate oblivion of this history by both Hanoi and Beijing has triggered growing public disapproval, especially in Vietnam. Though both governments claimed victory, the war was a chastening experience for all in Hanoi.
Since the conflict was fought entirely on Vietnamese territory, it runs contrary to the ruling Communist Party’s prevailing narratives of a China that never threatens or attacks its neighbours. So, China and Vietnam should both brood over their tragic past and meticulously cram the valued lessons drawn from the 1979 war to avoid the same mistakes in the future. More importantly, once the facts and nature of the war are acknowledged with constructive and sympathetic perspectives from both sides, the two sides can consider the use of “historical compensation” to adjust public opinion towards each other. As long as the mutual suspicion between the two peoples remains unsettled, China-Vietnam bilateral ties will be unable to develop substantially and smoothly, no matter how much official jargon glorifies the relationship.
Besides, Chinese leadership’s duplicity and mendacity demonstrate that the last thing the world should do is trust the Communist Party of China. Four examples of the Chinese leadership’s duplicity and mendacity – four out of many – should make this obvious to all.
· China-sourced Covid 19 Pandemic – After the 2002-03 SARS epidemic which also originated in China, a set of guidelines were established known as ‘International Health Regulations’ and under Article 6, China as a signatory is obliged to report to WHO within 24 hours, any information pertaining to public-health-emergency. Contrary to its promise China “suppressed, falsified, and obfuscated data and repressed advance warnings about the Covid-19 contagion at the earliest stage. The result is that the Coronavirus has become a far greater menace than it otherwise would have been. This is the CPC’s Coronavirus, not least because the party silenced brave Chinese doctors when they tried to blow the whistle on what was happening.
· In September 2015, Xi assured Obama that China was not pursuing militarization in and around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. But this was a pledge with Chinese communist characteristics: it was completely untrue. Satellite imagery released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US think tank, provides convincing evidence that the Chinese military deployed large batteries of anti-aircraft guns on the islands. At the same time, the Chinese navy has rammed and sunk Vietnamese fishing vessels in these waters and tested new anti-aircraft carrier missiles there.
- A third example of the CPC’s dishonesty is its full-frontal assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy, freedom, and rule of law. Xi has torn up the promises that China made to Hong Kong and the international community in the 1984 Joint Declaration (and subsequently) that the city would continue to enjoy its liberties until 2047.
- Finally, one can add China’s umpteen broken trade and investment promises, which overturned both the letter and spirit of what CPC officials had previously pledged. China’s coercive commercial diplomacy includes threats not to buy exports from countries whose governments dare to stand up to Xi. This has happened to Norway, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the United States, and others. The end result is often less than China had threatened, but not before an industry or economic sector has begged its government to back down.
One thing is clear: the world cannot trust Xi’s dictatorship. Besides, the age-old hostility between China and Vietnam cannot be shelved under the carpets or at least those innumerable sufferers in Vietnam will not allow these to disappear from the minds of their younger generations. So with the present celebration between the two Communist Parties of warring countries, the immediate outcome and future results will be interesting to watch.
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